


Public Electrocution

by dragoninatrenchcoat



Series: Out of the Nick of Time [6]
Category: Forever (TV 2014)
Genre: Actual character death not the Henry Morgan version, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragoninatrenchcoat/pseuds/dragoninatrenchcoat
Summary: What if Walden’s final dose of electricity had been fatal?At the end of episode 8, The Ecstasy of Agony, Henry very nearly dies in front of Jo, Mike, and an entire SWAT team. What if he had?Disclaimer: this is not guaranteed to be a reveal. Like all OotNoT stories, I recommend rewatching the correlating episode just before reading the story, but that’s certainly not required.
Relationships: Jo Martinez & Henry Morgan
Series: Out of the Nick of Time [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880338
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	1. Vanished

"Drop it--NYPD!"

"Let me see those hands!"

"Put it down!"

Relief warred with panic, as it often did for Henry. He hadn't been afraid of death up until now, while he’d been chained up and electrocuted, only pain; but with a roomful of officers storming in, not only Jo and Hanson but a whole squad of them, the possibility of his death became all the more stark. Then again, there was more than one person with their guns trained on Walden. It was over, wasn't it? Everything was going to be fine, it was over.

"You said you wanted to die fast?" Walden hissed into Henry's ear, and he only had the shortest moment to feel terror.

When the electricity arced through him, like a white-hot fire that burned from the inside, the last thing he saw was Jo rushing forward with determination and fear in her eyes.

Then the pain overtook him, and he felt that dreadingly familiar flare in his brain, that last-moment of agony that could never be prepared for, and he died.

#

The water was a comfort after most deaths, the painless weightlessness of it, at least for one precious moment. Then the bone-chilling frigidity of the East River swept in with the burning need to breathe, and he swam upward with two centuries of muscle memory.

Henry broke the surface of the water and gasped for air. Got his bearings, the near-quiet that was the middle of the river at night, the glowing halo of the City that Never Sleeps, and began the chattering-cold swim to shore.

He'd died in front of Jo. He'd died in front of an entire police squad, a shirtless spectacle spreadeagled on Walden's homemade cross.

Had any of them been wearing cameras?

He and Abe needed to leave, now; there was no other answer. His anonymous caller had been goading and scaring them into uprooting their lives, and all through it they'd stuck around to try and fight back, only for Henry to spell out their disaster all on his own. By kissing the wrong woman in public, of all the rotten mistakes.

It wasn't even a mistake. What he felt for Iona--Molly--was something he hadn't felt in a long time. And it was for  _ that _ he'd been punished.

#

It was rare that the apprehension of a murderer was brought to a complete standstill. If it ever happened, it was typically due to the murderer taking a hostage or killing themselves.

For the barest, breathless moment, all of them stood quiet. Jo, Hanson, the 11th Precinct SWAT team--to a man--and even Walden, staring wordless at the empty cross. For a static second, there was no sound or movement, a crowd of disbelieving eyes watching the place where Henry had been.

One of the SWAT members moved first, one of the ones in the front.  _ Officer Sebastian _ , Jo thought faintly. He moved quickly enough to disarm and cuff Walden while he still stood in shock.

But it was Mike that broke the silence. “He disintegrated him.”

The words sent a wave through them all, prompting mutters from the other officers, breaking the spell that had fallen across them. It was a solution to what they’d seen, something they could put in their reports, an answer with even the barest amount of sense.

Walden had electrocuted Henry, and he’d _ disintegrated, _ leaving behind an acrid burned smell _. _ Like a bad sci-fi movie.

No, that wasn’t what had happened. Anyone who put a moment’s thought into it would be able to see that. Henry hadn’t burst into flame; he’d  _ died, _ or at least passed out. He hadn’t combusted into ashes, he’d  _ vanished _ into nothing. But now that the words had been said out loud, it wouldn’t be long until they were the truth.

Jo glanced over to Hanson and saw the doubt in his eyes. How long would it be until that disappeared?

Had Henry just died?

It had happened so quickly. She'd been powerless to stop it, Walden's final act of carnage, an electrical charge who-knows-how-high released into Henry's body. He'd convulsed, in that heart-poundingly inhuman way that electricity convulsed, then he'd sagged motionless in those chains.

Then he'd vanished.

The other officers escorted Walden out, more of them than was necessary for one disarmed man. They wanted to turn their back on the empty cross, wanted to write up 'Dr. Henry Morgan was killed' in their reports and never think on it again. But none of them knew Henry. To them, he was an unexplainable thing that had happened, and the sooner they put it behind them the sooner life could go back to normal.

Jo knew Henry. Whatever had just happened... she... what the hell had just happened?

"Come on, Jo," said Mike, once everyone else had already left. It was the two of them and the cross, as silent as it'd been the moment after Henry had vanished.

After a weighted pause, Mike turned to leave. She reached out and grabbed his arm, finally wrenching her gaze away from the chains.

"You know that's not what happened," she said, looking into his eyes.

"What else could it have been, Jo? Tell me."

They stood there for a few long moments, looking defiant into one another's gaze. Finally, Jo released his arm.

"I'm not just looking for some alternative," she told him quietly. "You know what you saw. I don't know what happened, but it wasn't that. If you think about it, you'll know I'm right."

He hesitated. Swallowed. She could see in his eyes that he agreed with her.

"What else could it have been?" he repeated in a gentler tone; instead of an argument, it was an honest question. "What the hell could it have been?"

"Isn't it enough for now just to say we don't know?"

Another lingering silence.

He said, "They're going to say he was incinerated."

"I know. Our stories will have to differ."

Mike nodded. "Alright. Alright, I'm with you. We don't know what happened. Henry died and then disappeared. Just disappeared into nothing."

"Thank you, Mike."

He let out a resigned sigh. He wanted to ignore it, the way the other officers probably would, even Walden. But he wouldn't.

It's just so hard to leave a case cold, much less whatever the hell it was that had happened to Henry.

#

Jo didn't expect to have so much difficulty telling the truth.

Given what the other officers had already told Lieutenant Reece, she called Jo into her office as soon as possible for a personal debriefing. She, not having witnessed it, was less amenable to the 'I don't know, he literally vanished' version of events and even tried for a moment to talk Jo into admitting that Henry had been incinerated. When Jo stuck to her story, however, and offered to have Mike corroborate, Reece backed off and gave her some trust.

"You know what that sounds like," she said. It was as friendly a way as that sentence could be said.

"I do," Jo admitted, standing tall before her. "I don't have any answers. I don't understand what I saw, but I know I saw it."

"Hanson will back that up?"

"Yes, sir." She felt a seed of doubt as she said it, but she had to trust in her partner’s word.

"And, Martinez?" Reece added, looking into her eyes. "Dr. Morgan is dead."

Jo's chest tightened.

"We don't know what you saw, but he must have died. You understand that, don't you?"

She forced herself to nod. "Yes, sir."

"Now, once you have this case wrapped up, I want you to take the rest of the week off."

Jo opened her mouth to argue, but what came out instead was, "I'd like to be the one to tell Abe."

Reece paused in thought, then nodded. "Alright. Take Hanson with you."

"Yes, sir."

The lieutenant dismissed her with a nod, and Jo headed for Mike's desk.

#

Jo knocked on the glass door with its unusual 'closed' sign. Mike's presence was reassuring beside her, but she knew how little that comfort would help once she was looking into Abe's eyes.

She had to tell him that Henry, a man who might as well be his son, had  _ died, _ and they weren't sure they could explain what had happened.

There wouldn't even be a body to bury.

The pain that clenched her heart at the thought was an old, worn-in one, deeply familiar. That didn't make it hurt any less; but it did make it somewhat easier to push aside when the door to Abe's Antiques swept open.

The person inside, however, wasn't Abe. It wasn't anyone Jo knew. He was white, slightly shorter than her, with brown eyes and smoothed-back hair.

"Can I help you?" he asked, a small smile.

She hesitated. "Uh, yes. I'm Detective Martinez, this is Detective Hanson. We're with the NYPD. I'm looking for-"

"Oh!" The stranger's eyes lit up. "Abe said you might stop by. Come in, come in, please."

Mike and Jo exchanged a glance, and entered the antiques store as the stranger stood to the side.

"Can I have your name, sir?" Mike asked as the stranger closed the door behind them.

"Where are my manners?" The stranger let out a small chuckle, standing silhouetted against the windows. "I'm a business associate of Abe's. You may call me Adam."

"Adam...?" Mike asked, fishing for a last name.

Adam nodded. "That's right. Abe, unfortunately, needed to go out of town for a few days, and he's left me in charge of the shop. He said you might show up looking for Henry?"

Jo tensed. "Do you have a phone number or address for Abe? This is urgent."

"Well, I would guess so, a couple of cops showing up at the door." Adam laughed lightly. "However, he _ did _ tell me not to tell anyone where he was. Business secrets, and all that. I do have the power to pass along a message?"

"The power?" Mike echoed. "This is an antiques store, not a drug ring."

"Adam," said Jo. "The number, please. This is important."

"What, has someone died?" He said it jovially, but his face fell when he saw their expressions. "Oh. Oh, no. It wasn't Henry, was it?"

Something put her off about him. He wasn't holding himself threateningly, and he didn't appear to bear them any ill will, but he seemed to be weaseling through their questions. And he hadn't moved from his position between them and the door.

"Tell me it wasn't Henry," he said, his hand to his heart.

"Were you close with him?" Mike asked. It wasn't the best way to break that kind of news, and Jo knew he knew that. Maybe this 'Adam' put him off, too.

"Not as such," Adam said, with a wounded expression. "But he was so close with Abraham. Oh, poor Abe won't be able to bear the news. May I ask about the circumstances?"

"He was killed," Jo said, before Mike could respond.

_ "What? _ Have you caught the bastard?"

"Yes. We were... yes. Now, please, Adam. I need Abe's information."

"Oh, you weren't _ there, _ were you?" He correctly guessed the end of her unsaid sentence, and yet again, he refused to cooperate. A glance at Mike told her that he'd noticed the same thing. "What happened? I would like to know everything about it before I tell Abe."

"It's a matter of policy that we tell Abe personally." She gestured between herself and Mike. "You understand."

"Yes--but Abe isn't Henry's next of kin, is he?"

Jo only had the slightest moment to dwell on Adam's near-confrontational tone before he clasped his hands over his heart in what seemed like a genuine show of regret.

"I'm sorry, you don't deserve that. It's true, I didn't know Henry very well, but Abe is--you might not believe it, but he feels a brother to me sometimes. I won't get between you and your duty to Abe. For my own peace of mind, please, Detectives. What happened to Henry?"

She looked into his eyes and saw nothing but distraught sorrow. Had she imagined her mistrust of him? People ducked questions for all kinds of reasons, and not always on purpose. He still stood square between the two of them and the door, but that didn't mean anything on its own.

"He was..."

"Electrocuted," Mike finished, an apprehensive look in his eyes. Should they go with the true version, or the SWAT team version?

Well, of course Jo knew the answer to that. Giving someone closure over the death of someone dear to them was no reason to lie, not while representing the law. No matter who this Adam was, he deserved the truth.

Adam's eyes went wide. "What? Oh, no. You don't need someone to officially identify the body, do you? Abe won't be able to get back for several days, I might be able to help."

“Unfortunately, there isn’t a body.”

Mike cast her a curious look, but she’d already made her decision.

“What do you mean?” Adam asked, breathless.

Jo shook her head. “After he died, Henry’s body...” she caught on the words. _ Henry was dead. _ She was supposed to be talking to Abe right now, and then she was supposed to be off the clock, because  _ Henry had died. _

Mike finished, “Disappeared.”

Adam blinked. “What? Someone stole it?”

“No,” said Jo. “We’re still looking into exactly what happened and how, but I thought you deserved to know.”

“We?” Adam echoed. “Who’s we?”

Mike nodded. “The precinct is on it. We’ll find out what happened and get you your answers.”

Adam’s eyebrows went up, and something shifted in his gaze. “The whole precinct is looking into it?”

“That’s right,” said Mike.

"Well. That's good to know."

Something in Adam's demeanor changed. Jo tensed. He seemed to... lose all emotion, like it had been drained out of him. Mike bristled beside her, too, and it occurred to her again that she had no idea who this guy really was.

"That makes things simple, actually," Adam continued matter-of-factly, his hands behind his back. "I kill the both of you, and then I burn down the entire precinct.”

The three of them drew and fired nearly within the same spare moment. A split-second cacophony, then both Mike and Adam collapsed to the floor.

Jo called for a bus before she had a chance to lower her gun.  _ Officer down, _ she heard herself say, distantly.  _ Two wounded, officer down. _

The blood pooled on the thick carpet, pushing up against the legs of Abe's desk. She fell to her knees beside Mike and tried to stop the bleeding, refusing to acknowledge the glassiness in his eyes. He'd been shot in the heart.

Then Adam disappeared.

Jo dropped her phone into the blood, only half the pool now. Mike still lay there, cooling slightly under her hands, but all trace of Adam had disappeared.

Just like Henry.

When the paramedics arrived, they pronounced Mike DOA. Probably dead since before Jo had knelt beside him.

She was numb all over. Everyone around her was dying. Who would be next?

No. No, that wasn't what was happening. She closed her eyes and tried to claw herself out of those thoughts. She wasn't being  _ targeted; _ what had happened to Henry was because of his closeness to Ms. "Payne", and what had happened here was because of what had happened to Henry. This wasn't about her, it was a causal chain that she happened to be connected to.

But why the hell had Adam...? Who was he?

Mike was dead.

Mike Hanson was dead. Henry Morgan was dead.

Whatever had happened to Henry’s body had happened to Adam’s, whoever the hell he was.

Adam had been planning to kill them _ because _ of what had happened to Henry.

Adam had known what the disappearing meant. Maybe he'd known because the same would happen to him.

What the hell was going on?

She was going to have to tell Karen.

Jo registered the blanket around her shoulders. Someone was talking to her, an EMT she didn't recognize. He mentioned he'd called the police--more of them, anyway. And the next thing she knew, she was face-to-face again with Lieutenant Reece.

Reece didn't come out to the field often. The death of an officer was an understandable exception.

It took a little while, but Jo managed to tell her the entire story. This mysterious Adam, the way he'd gotten Henry's story from them. How that had prompted him to kill Mike, and them to kill him. Jo couldn't say whether it was her bullet or Mike's that had gotten him, or both. Then Adam had disappeared.

It was like Jo was stuck in a loop, reliving the same terrible moments over and over until her brain could register that they'd actually happened. Both Mike and Henry were dead, really dead, and they would keep being dead whenever she managed to get herself back to reality. Everyone was gone. Sean, Henry, Mike, everyone.

Reece hugged her. Jo had never known her to do anything of the sort. Still generally numb, Jo hugged her back.

"I'll tell Karen," said Reece when they pulled apart. "You go home. That's an order."

"Yes, sir."

A little while later, Jo was completely and utterly alone.


	2. Adam

Adam had wanted to cover up whatever the hell had happened to Henry.

It was the only conclusion Jo could come to. Whoever Adam was, that had been his entire purpose in waiting for them at Abe's Antiques.

Where was Abe, then? Had Adam killed him, too? He was capable of it, she knew that. He'd been planning to burn the entire precinct to the ground after learning that Jo had reported what she'd seen.

Had Mike died because Jo had wanted to tell the truth?

No. If anyone else had said that, she'd have been the first to tell them:  _ No _ . The actions of a murderer are not your fault. The trouble was, with Adam dead, there was nowhere else to reflect all this building-up pain.

Both of her partners dead in under 24 hours.

Why had she trusted Adam, even for a moment? How could she have doubted her own instincts? Hadn't she known right off the bat that there was something strange about him? Why had she written that off?

Why was 'dead bodies disappearing without a trace' something that warranted covering-up? Something that warranted killing and dying for?

How had Adam known in the first place that it had happened?

Well, he must have been following Henry. He must have known that Henry was one of these people that it would happen to. How could he have known? Was the disappearing thing just a symptom of something else? Could it be genetic?

Was there a point in wondering? It was over now.

#

When Jo woke up the next morning, both Henry and Mike were still dead. Abe too, possibly. She tried to call the precinct with her suspicions about Abe, but got no answer.

No answer at all. No one picked up the phone.

She called every number she had: her desk, Mike’s, Reece’s office, all their cells. No one answered. Not even reception.

A voice echoed in her memory:  _ "That makes things simple, actually. I kill the both of you, and then I burn down the entire precinct.” _

Her skin went cold. No, no, that wasn’t possible; Adam was dead. She rushed to the living room, grabbed her remote and turned on the TV. Local news.

A blazing fire filled the screen with its brilliant light. Spouts of water attempted to douse the flames, but they were so miniscule in comparison, and there was no mistaking the façade of the 11th Precinct building blackened by smoke.

The remote tumbled from her fingers and she backed away, staring at the bright flames. No. It wasn’t possible. Had he told someone? Had someone been listening to their conversation? Had the place been bugged? How else could anyone have found out...

How many people had been inside?

“I know what you’re thinking,” said a voice from the doorway to the kitchen. “No, not everyone was trapped inside when it went up in flames. Yes, I will hunt the rest of them down.”

Leaning in the doorway, a calm look on his face, was Adam.

Adam. Who she’d shot. Who’d died on the floor of Abe’s Antiques.

He smiled, a cool expression. “After all, one must entertain oneself somehow.”

“You... you...”

No, she was dreaming. This was a nightmare. But she couldn’t make herself believe that; she couldn’t shake the too-heavy feeling of reality, the chill that danced across her skin.

“Yes, I,” Adam answered, standing and walking a little farther into the room. She backed up on instinct. Could she get her gun from the bedroom? Was it too far away?

He continued, “Sometimes I feel like a cat playing with its food. Sometimes I feel like a god meddling with his creations. Usually I feel nothing at all. Do you know what I feel right now, Detective Josephine Martinez?”

She took a step back, toward the doorway of her bedroom. Adam launched into movement, and so did she; he chased her into her bedroom, caught up with her and pinned her on her own bed. She’d managed to twist in the scuffle, but he moved too quickly and too certainly, catching her legs in the nooks of his own and bracing her arms above her with a firm grip. It’d all taken less than a moment, and now her stomach and chest were completely exposed.

He leaned in, unmistakably the same man she’d shot and killed yesterday, breathing in her face. “I feel smug,” he answered himself, the hint of a smile gracing one of his cheeks. “I get to sing ‘I told you so’, even while I save his hide. I get to tell him what you did, and he’ll begin to understand: there’s no befriending, there’s no camaraderie when it comes to mortals. He thinks he’s so close to you, but you betrayed him. So easily, so quickly, so fully you betrayed him. That makes it two out of three for him, doesn’t it?”

A strange look overcame him, like his insane babbling had reminded him of something he’d rather not have recalled. She struggled against his grip, but he had her pinned too perfectly; there was no room to wiggle into a better position, there was nothing for her knees to aim for.

“I’m wasting my breath on you,” Adam muttered. All sign of his smile had vanished. “Cooperate and I won’t break too many of your bones.”

He pulled her to her feet. She immediately tried to knee him in the crotch, but he twisted her in his arms, and within moments he had her in a tight hold from behind. She bucked her head back and connected with his face, but he caught the crook of his arm around her throat, apparently unfazed by the impact.

So she hooked one foot around his ankle and pulled forward. Both of them fell bodily to the ground, inches away from her nightstand. She’d landed on her back. The gun was on top of the nightstand-

A sharp _ snap _ and a sudden flare of pain in her shoulder. She shouted and gasped for breath, but Adam was already straddling her, and a second _ snap _ inflamed her other shoulder.

“You people never learn,” he said despondently, like a parent clucking over a child. 

She tried to reach up for him, but each attempted movement burned with a fresh agony. He’d dislocated her shoulders. How had he done it so quickly, so certainly, just with his hands? She blinked through the pain, trying to track his movements, searching for any opening, gritting her teeth.

He stood up from her, adjusting the sleeves of his coat. “I would warn you again, but you won’t listen,” he said in the same absent tone, then with a flash of movement he stomped on her knee with a hot spear of pain. Her kneecap tore out of place; she could feel it, washed in its own agonizing flames. She screamed, and a second later, that fire echoed itself in her other knee. She couldn’t move, could barely think, every breath a strained cacophony of shooting pain.

“There you are. I’m a man of my word, you know; if you’d cooperated, I might only have done your legs.”

Adam picked Jo up bridal style, not bothering to give any special attention to her wounds. The result was a fresh round of pain; she tried to push through it to reach for Adam’s face, but her arm barely twitched and the effort nearly wiped her out.

If this was a nightmare, then it was unforgivingly realistic. But Jo knew better. Adam wasn’t a nightmare monster, but something far worse. He was the human kind.

He dropped her carelessly into an armchair and Jo couldn’t bite back a whimper. He backed away and fixed her with the camera of a cell phone.

“Smile,” he said, and she heard the snapshots as he took pictures.

Who was he going to send them to? Who was left? Why her--and how any of this? Jo scrambled to get her mind together, struggling to think around the pain, the fire that burned hotter with every breath. Determinedly, she fixed her thoughts into a line.

She’d shot Adam after he threatened to burn down the precinct. He’d died in Abe’s shop, then disappeared without a trace, just like Henry had. Then the precinct had burned down. Then Adam showed up like nothing had happened, talking about someone Jo had betrayed.

Who had she betrayed, other than every single cop in the 11th Precinct, by somehow setting Adam loose on them? How had he survived getting shot? Unless the disappearing thing meant... meant he was healed somehow. It had to. How else could she explain...

Henry had disappeared, too. And it wasn’t until hearing  _ that _ that Adam had decided to commit mass homicide--not until hearing that the entire precinct was looking into why Henry had disappeared. Adam had called her ‘mortal’, like there was any other option.

No. No, the pain was clouding her mind. There was no way; this was Adam’s twin brother, he’d had a bug in Abe’s place. It had to be. It was the only thing that made any sense.

“I trust the pictures found you well,” said Adam, pulling Jo out of her thoughts and into the agonizing present. But he wasn’t talking to her. He had his phone to his ear, pacing, as though it were a perfectly normal conversation. He passed back-and-forth before the news footage of the burning building, silhouetting against the flames every few moments.

His mouth twitched into another slight smile. “No, I didn’t expect you to thank me, but I appreciate that it came to mind regardless. I’m sure you know how many people saw you. Even you must recognize that I’m doing you a favor.”

_ “For those just tuning in, the 11th Precinct fire is still zero percent contained, and has so far resisted all attempted supressant techniques. Every building in a five-block radius has been evacuated, and the fire has already spread-” _

“Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?” Adam continued. “She is the one who betrayed you to me. If my information is correct, it’s her fault that they were going to look into it, rather than write the whole thing off. You could say it’s her fault that so many people died today.”

Could that... be true?

Jo struggled to move, but only succeeded in a rasping, hiccoughing breath, an involuntary groan. No.  _ No, you cannot blame yourself for the actions of a murderer.  _ She knew that. She...

Who was he talking to? Everyone she knew was...

Everyone she knew was dead.

“You’re too late, Henry,” said Adam, in that same even cadence. Jo’s heart skipped. “You should’ve known better than to get killed in front of a crowd of strangers. If I really wanted you to learn this lesson, I would’ve let it all play out, but I can’t trust you not to tell them about me in the eventuality that you do get caught. I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

He stopped pacing. Jo stared at his dispassionate expression; he glanced at her, but then past her through the window, like she were no more interesting than the armchair that held her prisoner.

“Detective Martinez is going to die,” he said easily. “I wanted to give you the opportunity to kill her, but if you’re going to be stubborn about it, I’ll do it myself.”

_ “No!” _

It was loud enough that Jo could hear it through Adam’s phone, over the news broadcast, over her own searing breaths. It was Henry’s voice. Henry was alive.

Like Adam, Henry hadn’t died.

“Take your time, then, Henry. With her injuries, Jo is going to die in a few days. Show up now and cut it short for her--or let her suffer and think about what she did to you. The choice is yours.”

He hung up the phone and finally looked at her. She thought she saw deep into his eyes, past his apathy and into something that could’ve been pain. Or maybe she was imagining things, trying to put sympathy where there was none.

He said, “You want me to say something impressive. Don’t killers always say something impressive? And I came back from the dead, so I must have some incredible wisdom to impart.”

He tossed the phone onto her stomach. She flinched, spreading the pain from her shoulders again.

“Hold on to that for me.”

Adam turned to leave.

Jo gathered up all the breath she could find, and forced it out between her teeth. “Tell me why. If I’m going to die anyway--tell me why.”

He actually paused. She hadn’t really expected him to.

He glanced back, met her eyes. “What you’re feeling right now, Detective Martinez--the pain, the helplessness, the betrayal, the guilt--it’s nothing compared to what would have happened to Henry if your little investigation took off. What if you could die, then come back to life, and die again? What if there was a team of scientists determined to understand why? What if the reason behind decades, perhaps centuries, of imprisonment and torture, was someone you’d once thought to trust? Someone who believed they’d done the right thing? If I hadn’t killed dozens of people today, Detective, then Henry would have died hundreds or thousands of times in their stead. If you ask me, it’s more than a fair trade.

“And if you’re asking specifically why I’m doing this to you: it’s because Henry has to learn this as well. Every mortal will eventually turn on him, even the ‘good’ ones who consider themselves extensions of truth and justice. Especially the good ones.”

Adam left.


	3. Henry is Immortal

“It’s a trap.”

“Obviously it’s a trap, Abe, and that is why you will not be coming with me.”

“At least let me drive-”

“No!”

Henry stood in front of the door to their hotel room. It would take hours to drive back. Did Jo have that long? He didn’t have a choice. He adjusted his grip on his suitcase.

“Move hotels,” he told Abe. “Go somewhere else, somewhere farther away. I’ll find you. But it’s too dangerous for you to come back to New York with me.”

“It’s dangerous for you too!”

“You know that’s not the case. Adam is a murderer who deserves a brand of vengeance that challenges everything I once believed in, but in his own sick way he did make it safer for my return. He may yet kill me, but I doubt even that. It’s you I’m concerned about, Abe. He may be using this to get me away from you. Wear a disguise, use cash, and change hotels. Get away from here.”

Abe’s chest deflated. “I know you’re right. I’m just worried about you.”

“I know. I’ll be safe.” He set down his suitcase, stepped forward and pulled Abe into a hug. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. Come back this time, Pops.”

“I always do.” He cast his son a wink, then picked up his suitcase and went to find a taxi.

#

Jo sat there, alone, slumped painfully in Sean’s armchair with Adam’s phone on her stomach, staring at the news broadcast. The fire had some chemical component that made it difficult to put out, but they were making slow progress, at the cost of the buildings surrounding the precinct. Several additional blocks had been evacuated.

Adam couldn’t be right; this wasn’t her fault. She’d done everything she could, hadn’t she? She’d done the right thing. She...

She’d spoken out against the lie that got reported by the SWAT team. She’d told numerous people that Henry had disappeared after dying, she’d gotten the Lieutenant to agree that they didn’t know what happened. She’d gotten Mike to change his mind.

Mike... dead. Reece... was Reece dead? If not, Adam might be on his way to her right now. She had to get out of this somehow. She had to stop him.

She struggled to move, forced herself past the pain, but all she succeeded in doing was shifting one of her forearms to rest on her stomach next to the phone, and that effort alone filled her vision with white spots. She rested a moment, pushed past the pain again, picked up the phone with her fingers. Turned it over.

She didn’t know how she’d guessed it, but she was right. A small explosive had been adhered to the back. Just big enough to do deadly damage to one or two people.

She thought about throwing it, but couldn’t be sure that she could throw it far enough, or that the impact wouldn’t set it off. She doubted she’d even be able to toss it off of her own lap. There was nothing she could do.

#

There was only so much ‘there is no time to waste!’ and ‘this is a matter of life and death, can you not see that?’ could do as far as speed was concerned. Henry had managed to find someone to drive him all the way back to the chaotic streets of New York, but still it was hours of waiting pensive in the back of a car.

He thought about calling an ambulance, but what if Adam was there, waiting? Would he kill the EMTs? Of course he would. Henry could call the police--same problem. If he called anyone he knew, they would recognize his voice, realize he wasn’t dead... that’s if they weren’t dead themselves.

The 11th Precinct building up in flames. Was that because of him? How many had died? Was Lucas dead? Hanson?

Was _ all of this _ happening just because he’d dared to kiss Molly?

The downtown traffic was truly hell given all the evacuations, so Henry paid far too much in cash and leapt out of the taxi. He ran until he found an unsecured bicycle, then stole it with a muttered apology to the building next to it and pedaled like mad between cars.

He didn’t even have any proof that she was at the address Adam had sent with the pictures. There was no evidence at all that she wasn’t already dead.

But he had no choice.

He found the right door, took the steps two or three at a time from the street, and barged in without knocking. The door was unlocked.

“Henry,” called a strained voice. Jo’s voice.

“Jo!”

He raced through to the living room. She was on the armchair, bloody and injured exactly as in the photo-

“Phone,” she said urgently. “Explosive-”

There was a cell phone resting on her stomach, next to her hand. Henry picked it up, turned, and threw it as hard as he could toward the front door-

It exploded moments after it left his fingertips. The force stumbled him back over the armchair and flat onto the floor--Jo grunted in pain--Henry’s arm had taken the worst of it, and the wooziness implied his head wasn’t far behind, but he’d been standing between the blast and Jo’s armchair, and that’s what mattered.

“Jo,” he said. The pain swept in, choking, bracing around his head and chest. He was blind in one eye, almost deaf, and too uncoordinated to get up from where he’d sprawled on the carpet. He was going to die, he could tell. Brain trauma. “Jo, are you alive?”

“I’m alive, Henry,” came the distant reply.

At least he didn’t have aphasia. “Good. Hang in there a little longer. I’ll come back for you.”

“Henry, I’m sorry...”

Her quiet voice faded away from him.

#

It had happened so fast. Jo’s ears rang from the explosion; she’d probably caught some of it, but it was difficult to sort through the different types of pain rocketing through her body.

Henry had shown up. He was alive. He’d taken the brunt of Adam’s explosive, and he’d died.

And disappeared. Again.

Henry was... immortal. Just like Adam. That’s why he’d disappeared after being electrocuted, that’s why she and Mike hadn’t known how to handle what had happened. Because it’d never happened before, at least not in recorded history--because recorded history about immortal people apparently had a tendency to go up in flames.

Was Adam right? If she and Mike and the Lieutenant had looked into it, would they have eventually found out the truth? And if they had, then what would have happened to Henry?

If the government had gotten interested, would Jo have realized what it meant? If Henry had vanished off the street one day, or appeared to have suddenly moved to Wisconsin, would she have been alarmed? Would she have searched for him? Or would she have been one of the ones tasked with capturing him?

No, she couldn’t think that. If she found out and believed the truth, she would have realized that bringing him in was the wrong thing to do, even if it came in the form of orders from the Lieutenant. Wouldn’t she?

She thought circles around herself until she heard hurried footsteps coming in from the front door. Henry. Again. Alive. Again.

He was wearing an oversized, muddy, pinstriped robe, and what looked like nothing else; it looked beyond strange on Henry Morgan, who normally wore such formal outfits. He rushed to her side and began checking her vitals.

“Henry,” she rasped. It was getting easier to force air out, easier to talk despite the pain.

“You’ll be fine, Jo. These injuries are painful and immobilizing, but not otherwise dangerous, not when you’ve a doctor on hand.” He offered her a smile. “Does this chair recline?”

“Yeah, that lever on the side. Henry-”

“I’m sorry about this, it will hurt.”

He pulled the lever and her legs screamed in pain. Jo tried to bite back a groan, but only managed to muffle it against her lips.

“There you are. I don’t have any painkillers on me. Is this your home? Do you happen to have-?”

“Henry.” She found his eyes with her determined gaze. “I’m sorry.”

He blinked. “What?”

“It’s...” She swallowed, and tears threatened to well up again, but she tried to rein them in. “It’s because of me that this happened.”

“No. No, Adam’s a killer, Jo.” He held her gaze, leaned forward with his hands resting gently on the edge of the recliner. “This is all because of him.”

“The SWAT team wanted to report your disappearance as a byproduct of- electrocution.” She struggled another breath. “I convinced Mike that there was more to it. If we’d kept going... if we’d found out-”

“Shh. No. If- Jo, look at me.”

He gently took her hand in his. She refocused on his face, where he gazed confidently into her eyes. Some of her pain melted away.

He said, “If anything had happened to me because of your investigation, it still would’ve been my fault. I’d had other avenues--I could have goaded Walden into killing me sooner. I could have grabbed his hand so that he electrocuted himself along with me. I could have sought you out afterward and explained everything myself instead of running away. I’ve been over all of it and more since Abe and I left, and there’s a thousand things I could have done to avoid this. You only wanted to know the truth about what happened to me, and I think that’s a noble thing. You did what you thought was right.”

_ What if the reason behind decades, perhaps centuries, of imprisonment and torture, was someone you’d once thought to trust? Someone who believed they’d done the right thing? _

She whispered, “If they captured you... how long would it take for you to stop believing that?”

Henry’s look softened. “Well, they didn’t, Jo. As you can see, I’m perfectly fine. I need to reset your joints and get you to a hospital.”

“No. No hospital. We reported you dead. When they ask for your ID-”

He shoved one of her shoulders back into its socket, interrupting her with her own shout of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Surprise is the best medicine with these injuries, in the case that you don’t actually have any medicine. Don’t worry about me, Jo, I’m not planning to stick around long enough to show my ID to anyone.”

“No, Henry, I won’t let you-”

He reset her other shoulder, prompting another shout, then she had to catch her breath.

“I’m sorry, Jo. Halfway there.”

She continued, “I won’t let you out of my sight.”

Henry paused and raised his eyebrows.

“I saw Mike die, right in front of me.” She panted, holding his gaze even as it grew blurry with her own tears. “The entire precinct went up in flames. If there’s any survivors, Adam’s going to hunt them down, and we need to stop him. But until then, I’m with you.”

“Jo...” A sadness developed in his gaze. “I don’t think there is a way to stop him. Not in time. I need to get you to safety.”

“We have to try, Henry! If we can save even one person-”

“I am saving one person.” He gave her a sad, meaningful smile.

She watched his face, and the pain swept back into her, the throbbing agony of each heartbeat. He was right, wasn’t he? There was nothing she could do against Adam. Against a man who couldn’t die. Not when she could hardly move, not when she could hardly breathe.

There was nothing she could do. Henry was _ immortal, _ and even he couldn’t see a way to stop Adam.

Everyone she knew was dead.

“No,” she breathed. “No, there must be something we can do. We can- we can put a BOLO out on Adam-”

“Jo, I’m sorry,” he said softly, leaning down toward her. “I really am. But the man is ruthless. If I’d known he would...” He blinked bleary eyes, his mouth open, as though his words had caught in his throat. “If I’d known...”

She felt hollow. Exhausted by the pain, physical and otherwise. Cold and empty with the loss of so many good officers, a yawning intensity of the grief she’d felt only last night. If Adam couldn’t be stopped in time, then everything was already over. She saw her emotions echoed in the moistening of Henry’s eyes.

“Henry.” She reached for his hand again, surprised at how comparatively easy it was.

He swallowed, watching her.

“If everyone’s gone...” she kept his gaze, melting into the biting chill of defeat. “You’re it. You’re all I have left. If I have a choice in all this, then I’m sticking with you, Henry Morgan.”

“Jo,” Henry stammered. “I... I- I can’t ask-”

“You’re not asking. I’m telling. Let me in. Let me help you.”

“I’m... running,” he admitted with a wince. “If you came with me, you’d be leaving everything behind--the city you grew up in, everyone you ever met. Everything you’ve ever worked for.”

“I’ve already lost everything.” She forced her words around the lump in her throat. “Everything but you. Let me come with you.”

“I’m going to  _ Canada.” _

“I can learn French.”

It struck her as he looked between her eyes, trying to categorize what he felt: Henry didn’t have any friends apart from Abe. He didn’t have anyone who knew him--truly knew him--and that was by design.

She said, “I don’t know much about what you have, I just know that you and Adam have it in common. I know that he thinks there’s no one in the world who can be trusted with your secret. But he’s wrong, Henry. You can trust me.”

“That Adam is wrong isn’t a terribly novel concept,” he said through a teary smile.

“You can trust me. ”

He bit his lip and nodded. “Okay, Jo. But first you have to let me help you. I need to reset your knees.”

“Okay.” She squeezed his hand again, then relinquished it.


	4. Starting Over

“I could’ve driven us,” Jo said, glancing over at Henry. He raised an eyebrow at her.

They shared the back of a cab, watching lines of cops direct traffic. The evacuation zone had been expanded again, and while the road was chock-full of slow-moving cars, at least they didn’t have to worry about red lights; various evacuation-traffic-paths had been carved throughout the city.

“You can’t walk on your own,” Henry reminded her. “Let alone operate a vehicle. Abe has a car, anyway.”

He’d changed out of the muddy robe into a set of clothes he’d fished out of his suitcase: just a collared shirt and pants, much less than he usually wore. Although the outfit was nice enough on its own, it made Henry look underdressed.

“It might’ve been nice to have two cars.”

“I doubt it would’ve been worth the danger to your life and health for either of us to make an attempt at driving it.”

It was true that Jo couldn’t put the slightest pressure on her bandaged knees without them flaring up in pain, and that her car didn’t have cruise control, but it would’ve been worth it just to have the time alone with Henry. To ask him the hundreds of questions she needed to ask.

She could at least ask the ones that didn’t directly implicate him. She glanced at the driver, and saw that Henry knew she was being careful.

“Who is Adam?” she asked.

Henry thought for a moment, then seemed to light up with an idea. “Ah, you mean the character in the science-fiction novel that I’m working on?”

She wondered how he’d managed to hold onto a secret like his for so long if he was such a terrible liar.

“Yeah, of course,” she answered anyway. “You haven’t told me much about him.”

“Well, you already know that he suffers from the same affliction as the main character, but he claims to be... considerably older. On the order of a magnitude.”

Older. They were  _ immortal _ , of course they’d be older than they looked. “How...” she hesitated. “How old is the main character?”

He cleared his throat and found something interesting to focus on through the window. “Two hundred and thirty-five.”

Two _ hundred? _ She stared at Henry, who finally caught her gaze and smiled nervously. He fussed with the cuff of his shirt.

“No wonder he’s so old-fashioned,” she heard herself say.

He cleared his throat again. “Yes, well. Adam is a... recent introduction into the plot. He discovered the main character’s... miraculous recoveries, and immediately set about stalking him. He claimed to be a friend, but hardly acted like one. He’s done... things in the past that could be construed as friendly, but chiefly just served to protect their shared secret. I don’t think there’s any evidence so far that the two of them would get along for a moment.”

“How many others are there?”

Henry shook his head. “None, actually. Not as far as...” He glanced at the driver. “... I’ve written.”

“Did you know that...” she paused. “I mean, was this out-of-character for him? Would you have seen it coming?” It wasn’t a very understandable question to ask an author, but there was no other way to ask it.

Henry’s mouth pressed into a grim line. “Yes and no. I’ve never... he’s never done anything like this during the events of the book. But there have been implications that he had gone to great lengths in the past. I had a hunch--that is, the book hinted for a moment that Adam might have actually been Jack the Ripper, but that was never verified.”

“Great.”

“But Jo, to answer your question...” He sighed. “If I’d known that the events of the book would have affected you--would have affected anyone like this, I would have written it differently. You must understand that.”

She reached out for his shoulder. “There’s nothing you could have done, Henry.”

He opened his mouth, then shut it again. “Maybe not. I just... I feel I need to impress upon you that the main character doesn’t agree with Adam. Not with his ideas, his methods, his logic--none of it. Even though they have this extraordinary thing in common. If only there was a real way to kill him.”

The words shocked her, coming from Henry Morgan. “Do you mean that?”

He deflated, his mouth set in a grim line. “No. I don’t suppose I do. But if I were ever to cross that line--to write a death myself, as it were--it would most likely be for him. Particularly now after what he’s done, particularly because I don’t doubt for a moment that he’ll do it again. In my name, no less. I just... I can’t trust him not to hurt Abe. I can’t trust anything about him, I never know what he’ll do or how he’ll act. And yet I can’t help but feel responsible for him. Like there’s something I should have been able to do, some way I should have been able to rein him in.”

“Don’t talk like that. You can’t blame yourself.”

“Well, he is my character.”

It was a useless answer that she nonetheless couldn’t argue, and he was flagrantly using it to win the point. She frowned at him, but he’d fixed his eyes on the traffic outside.

She said, “We can’t let him get away with this.”

“He won’t.”

The finality in his voice was ominous, and offered her a flicker of hope. “You have something in mind?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, whatever it winds up being, I want in.”

#

Despite the fact that Abe had apparently left no clues about which new hotel he’d chosen, it didn’t take Henry long to find him. He had the cab drop them off at a motel with a wide parking lot and a sign advertising free TV, picked Jo up despite her insistence that she could walk on her own--not a complete lie, but maybe close to it--and the two of them slowly approached one of the rooms with its light glowing from behind closed curtains.

Henry knocked and readjusted his grip on Jo. She held him around the shoulders, wishing they at the very least had access to a wheelchair.

A pause, and then the door opened. Abe frowned at the two of them. “Okay, I’ll bite. How’d you know this was my room? I didn’t think you’d have known the fake name I used.”

Henry scoffed. “Really, Abe? With your car immediately out front? I thought I taught you better than that.”

Abe peered around them to see his car parked in the nearest spot, pointing at his door like a giant arrow. With a sheepish shrug, he backed off to let them enter.

They ducked inside, and Abe helped Henry lay Jo on the nearest of the two beds.

“How are you feeling?” Henry asked. 

“I’m fine,” she answered with a wince. She waved them off so she could adjust herself on the mattress.

He raised an eyebrow. “You are not fine, and I’ll be going out immediately in search of better medical supplies.”

“I just need to rest, Henry, and so do you.”

“Unlike you, I am perfectly healthy. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to go after you without painkillers, at the very least-”

“Not just for your health. You need to rest. We both do.”

Abe crossed his arms, nodding. “Looks like you’re outvoted. You’re staying in tonight, Henry. We can talk about it more tomorrow.”

Henry looked between them. “This is ridiculous. You do both recall that I’m  _ immortal. _ I’ll be perfectly safe.”

Abe glanced at Jo with a flash of surprise, but then he answered, “Immortal doesn’t mean immune to overexertion, not to mention that none of us know where the nearest body of water is. Stay in, rest. I can grab some Advil from the overpriced vending machine in the lobby.”

“At least let me do that-”

“No, no. The receptionist already knows what I look like. If you really came straight to my room, then it’s better they don’t see you at all, wouldn’t you agree?”

There was a brief pause. Henry huffed, resting his hands on his hips.

“Yes, alright,” he agreed. “But you go right there and back. No dilly-dallying.”

Abe grinned in triumph and grabbed his wallet. “No dilly-dallying; got it. I’ll be right back, Jo.”

“Thank you,” she answered, in the spare moment before he disappeared through the door.

Henry let out a heavy breath. “I swear, Abraham will be the death of me someday.”

Jo frowned. “If you’re... two hundred years old, then Abe couldn’t have been your father’s business partner, could he?”

“Two hundred and thirty-five, and, no.” There was that nervous smile again, the same one he’d worn when he’d told her his age the first time. “In fact, Abe is my son. We adopted him after the war.”

“Abe is your...”

His smile faded. “And he’s out there all alone. What if Adam followed us? What if he does something to Abe?”

Henry strode across the room and opened the door, but thankfully he didn’t disappear outside. His shoulders relaxed.

“I can see him from here,” he reported. “He’s fine.”

Jo laughed. It was sudden and loud, and renewed her aches all over again, but at the same time it felt so freeing. And so... wrong, like it wasn’t something she was allowed to feel.

Henry turned around, surprised by the noise. “What?”

“Oh, my God, Henry.” She laughed again. “You’re a helicopter mom.”

“I’m a what?”

She laughed more rather than explain, and he turned again to watch Abe--his _ son _ \--proceed along the sidewalk into the motel’s lobby. Somehow, it made so much sense. Somehow everything about Henry just made so much more sense.

#

Jo fell asleep minutes after taking the painkiller. Henry carefully tucked her in, then he and Abe shared the second bed.

“Been a while since I crawled into my parents’ bed,” Abe muttered as they sussed out their blankets.

The corner of Henry’s mouth curled into a smile. “You can rest assured that no monsters will attack you tonight.”

“Hey, the one under my dresser was real. You can’t deny that.”

“It was a monster of a rat, perhaps, but it was never a threat to your life.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know how many diseases that thing could’ve been carrying.”

They eventually got comfortable, and Henry stared up at the ceiling. Harder to sleep tonight than it had been in a long while.

Just a day ago, everything had been fine. Perfect even. He’d met a lovely woman...

“Tomorrow’s going to be the worst,” Abe said quietly. “We should stay here an extra night.”

Henry glanced over. “What makes you say that?”

“It’s going to hit us tomorrow. Me, and you... but Jo in particular. Her entire life went up in flames today, in more ways than one. It’s not going to be easy.”

“No. No, it isn’t.”

“But we’ll get through it. We’ll get through it, we always do.”

Abe laid a little lower than him on his pillow, at just the right angle for Henry to lean over and kiss the top of his head. “We always do,” he echoed.

“Good night, Dad.”

“Good night, Abraham.”

They fell asleep leaning against one another.


End file.
